Bolt Buildings, Westminster, is a colossal red structure reared upon the site of frightened-looking little houses which fell beneath the breaker's hammer coincident with the falling in of their lease. Here you may have a complete floor of rooms at from three to five hundred a year; or, high under the roof, you may rent a single room for forty-five pounds.
Mr. David Brunger, Private Detective and Confidential Inquiry Agent, appeared on the books of the Bolt Buildings management as lessee of one of these single rooms. The appearance of his quarters as presented to the visitor had, however, a more pretentious aspect.
Shot to the topmost floor in the electric lift, passing to the left and up five stairs in accordance with the lift boy's instructions, the intending client would be faced by three doors. Upon the first was inscribed:
DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks).
Upon the middle door:
DAVID BRUNGER (Private).
And upon the third:
DAVID BRUNGER (Office).
These signs of large staff and flourishing business were in keeping with the telling advertisements which Mr. David Brunger from time to time caused to appear in the Press.
“Watch your wife,” said these advertisements, adding in smaller type that had the appearance of a whisper: “David Brunger will watch her.” “What keeps your husband late at office?” they continued. “David Brunger will find out. Confidential inquiry of every description promptly and cheaply carried out by David Brunger's large staff of skilled detectives (male and female). David Brunger has never failed. David Brunger has restored thousands of pounds' worth of stolen property, countless missing relatives. David Brunger, 7 Bolt Buildings, Strange Street, S.W. Tel. 0000 West.”
In London, with its myriad little eddies of crime and matrimonial infelicity, there is a neat sum to be made out of detective work. Scotland Yard wolfs the greater part of these opportunities; there are established names that absorb much of the remainder. In the surplus, however, there is still a livelihood for the David Brungers. For if the Brungers do not go nosing after silken petticoats covering aristocratic but wanton legs; if the Brungers do not go flying across the Continent, nose to ground, notebook in hand, after the fine linen worn by my lord who is making holiday with something fair and frail under the quiet name of Mr. and Mrs. Brown; if the Brungers are not employed to draggle silken petticoats and fine linen through the Divorce Court, there is work for them among humbler washing baskets. Jealous little shop-keepers have erring little wives, and common little wives have naughty little husbands: these come to your Brungers. And if, again, the Brungers do not dog the footsteps of your fifty-thousand-pound men, your embezzlement-over-a-period-of-ten-years men, your cheque-forging men—if the Brungers are invited to do no dogging after these, there are pickings for them in less flashy crimes. Hiding in cupboard work while the sweated little shop-assistant slips a marked shilling from the till, hiding in basement work while a trembling little figure creeps down and pilfers the stock—these are the pranks that come to your Brungers.
While Mr. Marrapit at Herons' Holt was addressing to his household grouped about him his orders relative to the search for the Rose of Sharon, Mr. David Brunger at Bolt Buildings was entering the door marked “DAVID BRUNGER (Private).”
A telephone, a gas stove, a roll-top desk, an office chair, an armchair, a tiny deal table and a wooden-seated chair comprised the furniture of the apartment.
“For myself, I like severity and simplicity of surroundings,” Mr. David Brunger in the office chair would tell a client in the armchair. “For myself—” and he would waggle his head towards the side walls with an air that seemed to imply prodigal luxury in the fittings of “(Clerks)” and “(Office).”
Entering the room Mr. Brunger unlocked the roll-top desk; discovered the stump of a half-smoked cigarette; lit it and began to compare the day's racing selections of “Head Lad,” who imparted stable secrets to one tipster's organ, with those of “Trainer,” who from the knowledge of his position very kindly gave one horse snips to another.
At ten o'clock the large staff of trained detectives (male and female), mentioned in Mr. Brunger's advertisements, came pouring up the stairs, knocked at the door and filed into the room. Its name was Issy Jago, a Jewish young gentleman aged seventeen, whose appearance testified in the highest manner to the considerable thrift he exercised in the matter of hair-dressers and toilet soap.
Mr. Issy Jago sat himself on the wooden-seated chair before the small deal table; got to work upon his finger-nails with the corner of an omnibus ticket; proceeded to study the police court reports in the Daily Telegraph.
It was his duty, whenever he noted plaintiffs or defendants to whom Mr. David Brunger's services might be of benefit, to post to them Mr. David Brunger's card together with a selection of entirely unsolicited testimonials composed and dictated by Mr. Brunger for the occasion.
Also his duty to receive clients.
When a knock was heard at “DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks)” Mr. Issy Jago would slip through from “DAVID BRUNGER (Private)” to the tiny closet containing the cistern into which the door marked “DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks)” opened. Sliding through this door in such a manner as to give the client no glimpse of the interior, he would inform the visitor, with a confidential wink, “Fact is we have a client in there—a very well-known personage who does not wish it to be known that he is consulting us.” The impressed caller would then be conducted into “DAVID BEUNGER (Private).”
Between “DAVID BRUNGER (Private)” and “DAVID BRUNGER (Office),” on the other hand, there was no communication. Indeed there was no room behind “(Office)”: the door gave on to the roof. When, therefore, a hesitating client chose to knock at “(Office)” Mr. Issy Jago, emerging from “(Private),” would give the whispered information: “Fact is there's a very important private consultation going on in there—Scotland Yard consulting us.” And the impressed client would forthwith be led into “DAVID BRUNGER (Private).”
In either event, the client trapped, Mr. Issy Jago would skip into “(Clerks)” and sit on the cistern till Mr. Brunger's bell summoned him.
For the privilege of adding to the dignity of his single apartment by having his name inscribed upon the cistern cupboard and upon the emergency exit to the roof, Mr. Brunger paid thirty shillings extra per annum.
By half-past ten Mr. Brunger was occupied in composing an unsolicited testimonial to be sent to the wife of a green-grocer in the Borough who, on the previous day, had summoned her husband for assault at Lambeth Police-Court.
“I had suspicions but no proof of my 'usband's infidelity,” dictated Mr. Brunger, pacing the floor, “until I enlisted your services. I must say—”
At that moment the telephone bell rang. Mr. Brunger ceased dictation; took up the receiver.
“Are you David Brunger, the private detective?” a voice asked.
“We are,” replied Mr. Brunger in the thin treble he used on first answering a call. “Who are you, please?”
“I am Mr. Christopher Marrapit of Herons' Holt, Paltley Hill, Surrey. I—”
“One moment,” piped Mr. Brunger. “Is it confidential business?”
“It is most urgent business. I—”
“One moment, please. In that case the private secretary must take your message.”
Mr. Brunger laid down the receiver; took a turn across the room; approached the telephone; in a very deep bass asked, “Are you there?”
The frantic narrative that was poured into his ears he punctuated with heavy, guttural “Certainly's,” “Yes's,” “We comprehend's,” “We follow you's.” Then: “Mr. David Brunger himself? I'm afraid that is impossible, sir. Mr. Brunger has his hands very full just now. He is closeted with Scotland Yard. At this moment, sir, the Yard is consulting him ...'m...'m. Well, I'll see, sir, I'll see. I doubt it. I very much doubt it. But hold the line a minute, sir.”
In his capacity of Mr. David Brunger's private secretary, Mr. David Brunger drank from the carafe of water on the mantelpiece to clear his tortured throat.
In his capacity of the great detective and confidential inquiry agent himself, he then stepped to the telephone and, after exhibiting a power of invention relative to startling crimes in hand that won even the admiration of Mr. Issy Jago, announced that he would be with Mr. Marrapit at three o'clock.
“It may be a big job, Issy,” he remarked, relighting the stump of cigarette, “or it may be a little job. But what I say and what I do is, impress your client. Impress your client, Issy. Let that be your maxim through life. And if I catch you again takin' a draw at my cigarette when my back's turned, as I see you just now, I'll damn well turn you inside out and chuck you through that door. So you watch it. You've made this smoke taste 'orrid-'orrid. No sauce, now; no sauce.”
By two o'clock the results of Mr. Marrapit's colossal scheme began to pour in.
The bowls of milk, gleaming along the wall of Herons' Holt, drew every stray cat within a radius of two miles. Beneath, each armed with a clothes-prop, toiled Mr. Fletcher and Frederick under the immediate generalship of Mr. Marrapit.
Throughout the morning cats bounded, flickered and disappeared upon the wall. Fat cats, thin cats; tom cats, tabby cats; white cats, black cats, yellow cats, and grey cats; young cats and old cats. As each appeared, Mr. Marrapit, first expectant then moaning, would wave his assistants to the assault. Up would go the clothes-prop of Mr. Fletcher or Frederick; down would go the stranger cat. It was exhausting work.
At two-thirty the village boys who had been searching were mustered at the gate. Each bore a cat. Some carried two. Leaving his clothes-prop lancers, Mr. Marrapit hurried down the drive to hold review.
“Pass,” he commanded, “in single file before me.”
They passed. “Dolt! Dolt!” groaned Mr. Marrapit, writhing in the bitterness of crushed hope as each cat was held towards him. “Dolt and pumpkin-head! How could that wretched creature be my Rose?”
How, indeed, when at that moment the Rose of Sharon in the ruined hut was lapping milk taken her by George in a lemonade bottle, her infamous captor smoking on the threshold?
Precisely at three o'clock Mr. David Brunger arrived. Conducted to the room whence the Rose had disappeared, the astute inquiry agent was there closeted with Mr. Marrapit for half an hour. At the end of that time Mr. Marrapit appeared on the lawn. His face was white, his voice, when he spoke, hollow and trembling. He called to the clothes-prop lancers:
“Cease. Cease. Withdraw the milk. The Rose of Sharon is not strayed. She is stolen!”
“Thenk Gord!” said Frederick. “Thenk Gord! I've pretty well busted myself over this game.”
Mr. Fletcher said nothing; drew his snail from his pocket; plunged head downwards in a bush. Woe sat heavy upon him; beneath the indignity and labour of thrusting at stranger cats with a clothes-prop this man had grievously suffered.
The Rose was stolen. That was Mr. Brunger's discovery after examination of the window-latch where George's knife had marked it, the sill where George's boots had scratched it. Outside the great detective searched for footmarks—they had been obliterated by heavy rainfall between the doing of the hideous deed and its discovery. Upon the principle of impressing his client, however, Mr. Brunger grovelled on the path with tape measure and note-book; measured every pair of boots in the house; measured the window; measured the room; in neat little packets tied up specimens of the gravel, specimens of the turf, specimens of hair from the Rose of Sharon's coat, picked from her bed.
It was six o'clock when he had concluded. By then George had returned; the three held council in the study. Addressing Mr. Marrapit, Mr. Brunger tapped his note-book and his little packages. “We shall track the culprit, never fear, Mr. Marrapit,” he said. “My impression is that this is the work of a gang—a gang.”
“Precisely my impression,” George agreed.
Mr. Brunger took the interruption with the gracious bow of one who condescends to accept a pat on the back from an inferior. Mr. Marrapit twisted his fingers in his thin hair; groaned aloud.
“A gang,” repeated Mr. Brunger, immensely relishing the word. “We detectives do not like to speak with certainty until we have clapped our hands upon our men; we leave that for the amateurs, the bunglers—the quacks of our profession.” The famous confidential inquiry agent tapped the table with his forefinger and proceeded impressively. “But I will say this much. Not only a gang, but a desperate gang, a dangerous, stick-at-nothing gang.”
Mr. Marrapit writhed. The detective continued: “What are our grounds for this belief?” he asked. “What are our data?”
He looked at George. George shook his head. Easy enough, and useful, to acquiesce in the idea of a gang, but uncommonly hard to support the belief. He shook his head.
Mr. Brunger was disappointed; a little at sea, he would have clutched eagerly at any aid. However, “impress your client.” He continued: “These are our data. We have a valuable cat—a cat, sir, upon which the eyes of cat-breeders are enviously fixed. Take America—you have had surprising offers from America for this cat, sir, so you told me?”
“Eight hundred pounds,” Mr. Marrapit groaned.
“Precisely. Observe how our data accumulate. We have dissatisfaction among breeders at home because you will not employ this cat as, in their opinion, for the good of the breed, she should be employed.”
Mr. Marrapit moaned: “Polygamy is abhorrent to me.”
“Precisely. Our data positively pile about us. We have a thousand enthusiasts yearning for this cat. We have your refusal to sell or to—to—” Mr. Brunger allowed a hiatus delicately to express his meaning. “Then depend upon it, sir, we have a determination to secure this cat by foul means since fair will not avail. We have a conspiracy among unscrupulous breeders to obtain this valuable cat, and hence, sir, we have a gang—a gang.”
Mr. Marrapit put his anguish of mind into two very deep groans.
“Keep calm, my dear sir,” Mr. Brunger soothed. “We shall return your cat. We have our data.” He continued: “Now, sir, there are two ways of dealing with a gang. We can capture the gang or we can seduce the gang—by offering a reward.”
George jumped in his chair. “Anything wrong?” Mr. Brunger inquired.
“Your—your extraordinary grasp of the case astonishes me,” George exclaimed.
“Experience, sir, experience,” said Mr. Brunger airily. Addressing Mr. Marrapit, “We must put both methods to work,” he continued. “I shall now go to town, look up the chief breeders and set members of my trained staff to track them. Also I must advertise this reward. With a cat of such value we cannot use half measures. Shall we say one hundred pounds to start with?”
“Barley water!” gasped Mr. Marrapit. “Barley water!”
George sprang to the sideboard where always stood a jug of Mr. Marrapit's favourite refreshment. Mr. Marrapit drank, agitation rattling the glass against his teeth.
“Think what it means to you, sir,” persuaded Mr. Brunger, a little alarmed at the effects of his proposal.
The detective's tone had a very earnest note, for he was thinking with considerable gratification what the hundred pounds would mean to himself. On previous occasions he had urged rewards from his clients, put Mr. Issy Jago in the way of securing them, and paid that gentleman a percentage.
“Think what it means to you,” he repeated. “What is a hundred pounds or thrice that sum against the restoration of your cat? Come, what is it, sir?”
“Ruin,” answered Mr. Marrapit, gulping barley water. “Ruin.”
Mr. Brunger urged gravely: “Oh, don't say that, sir. Think what our dumb pets are to us. I've got a blood-'ound at home myself that I'd give my life for if I lost—gladly. Surely they're more to us, our faithful friends, than mere—mere—”
“Pelf,” supplied George, on a thin squeak that was shot out by the excitement of seeing events so lustily playing his hand.
“Mere pelf,” adopted Mr. Brunger.
Mr. Marrapit gulped heavily at the barley water; set his gaze upon a life-size portrait in oils of his darling Rose; with fine calm announced: “If it must be, it must be.”
With masterly celerity Mr. Brunger drew forward pen and paper; scribbled; in three minutes had Mr. Marrapit's signed authority to offer one hundred pounds reward.
He put the document in his pocket; took up his hat. “To-morrow,” he said after farewells, “I or one of my staff will return to scour the immediate neighbourhood. It has been done, you tell me, but only by amateurs. The skilled detective, sir, will see a needle where the amateur cannot discern a haystack.”
He was gone. His last words had considerably alarmed George. No time was to be lost. All was working with a magic expediency, but the Rose must not be risked in the vicinity of one of these needle-observing detectives. She must be hurried away.
“Uncle,” George said, “I did not say it while the detective was here—I do not wish to raise your hopes; but I believe I have a clue. Do not question me,” he added, raising a hand in terror lest Mr. Marrapit should begin examination. “I promise nothing. My ideas may be wholly imaginary. But I believe—I believe—oh, I believe I have a clue.”
Mr. Marrapit rushed for the bell. “Recall the detective! You should have spoken. I will send Fletcher in pursuit.”
George seized his uncle's arm. “On no account. That is why I did not speak before. I am convinced I can do better alone.”
“You do not convince me. You are an amateur. We must have the skilled mind. Let me ring.”
George was in terror. “No, no; do you not see it may be waste of time? Let me at least make sure, then I will tell the detective. Meanwhile let him pursue other clues. Why send the trained mind on what may be a goose-chase?”
The argument had effect. Mr. Marrapit dropped into a chair.
George explained. To follow the clue necessitated, he said, instant departure—by train. He would write fullest details; would wire from time to time if necessary. His uncle must trust him implicitly. The detective must not be told until he gave the word.
Eager to clutch at any hope, Mr. Marrapit clutched at this. George was given money for expenses; at eight o'clock left the house. There had been no opportunity for words with his Mary. She did not even know that Mr. Marrapit had refused the money that was to mean marriage and Runnygate; she had not even danced with her George upon his success in his examination. Leaving the household upon his desperate clue, George could do no more than before them all bid her formal farewell. At half-past eight he is cramming the peerless Rose of Sharon into a basket taken from Mr. Fletcher's outhouses; at nine the villain is tramping the railway platform, in agony lest his burden shall mi-aow; at ten the monster is at inn, the agitated Rose uneasily slumbering upon his bed.
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